Monday, 17 March 2008

Mulligatawny and dubious traditions

This month Holler is hosting the No Croutons Required blog event that she runs with Lisa. For March, they have asked bloggers to make a spicy soup. Not being a chilli fiend, my mind initially drew a blank. But then I couldn’t open a cookbook without spicy soups jumping out at me – tortilla soup, couscous dumplings in spicy tomato soup, spicy peanut soup, and a pumpkin, corn & wild rice chowder. So many great recipes out there!

But the soup that really captured my imagination was the vegetarian mulligatawny which Gluten Free Goddess, Karina, made. Why? Because I have only come across it before as a meat soup and I wanted to taste it. Because it is the sort of dish I want to make just to be able to roll the name around on my tongue. (Go on, I know you want to say it out loud!) Because Karina’s version was full of vegetables which pleased me.

There was one small problem with Karina’s soup. It seemed to take a lot of flavour from curry powder. My curry powder was bought at the supermarket years ago and I was worried it might not enhance the soup as it should. So I turned to another version of mulligatawny I had found in Cooking with Kurma. I had initially rejected it because it seemed quite watery – one of those soups where you cook up lots of interesting flavours and then discard them (after sieving) in the hope they leave their flavour in the water. But the idea of using Kurma’s spices and Karina’s vegetables appealed. It seemed the best of both worlds.

Once I had decided on making mulligatawny, I had to check on the traditional recipe to see how close my recipe compared. A quick search of the internet convinced me that the traditions were as flimsy as the English Empire’s pretext for colonising India. (Actually I don’t know why they did but colonisation always seemed to be about greed and power which is never a satisfying reason! I will find out later.) Apparently, mulligatawny means pepper water and was eaten by British colonists in the mistaken belief that it was what the locals ate.

I have read that traditional Indian cooking does not really include soups. It would be fascinating to have been there when some Indian was persistently questioned about what soups they ate. I can only imagine that the person who gave the recipe had a good sense of humour and enjoyed much laughter when seeing the Brits with their ‘traditional’ mulligatawny.

After reading about mulligatawny's dubious origins, I felt quite comfortable in making a hamfisted attempt at messing with the recipes. I felt I produced the peppery taste but possibly included more vegetables than is traditional. I added a few vegetables to rescue them from the back of the fridge. I didn't have a muslin cloth to put my spices in so I improvised with a tea infuser - I don't drink tea when it is this hot, so at least it is not just gathering dust. I was quite forgetful as I made it and added the garlic and ginger later than I should have. Then I totally neglected to add lime juice and sugar but I don’t know they would have improved it.

I am happy to report that I was most pleased with my mulligatawny and now curious to try more. It was a delicious subtly-spiced soup with sweet flavours of the spices, the tartness of the apple and a touch of creaminess from the coconut milk. With all those vegetables, and chickpeas too, it must be nutritious as well as vegan and gluten free - something for everybody! I am sure Lisa and Holler will love it.

Place cardamom, cloves and pepper in a piece of muslin or in a tea infuser and place in the stockpot. Add cinnamon stick, stock, tomatoes and chick peas. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender, - about 20 to 30 minutes.

In a small frypan melt the ghee over low heat. Add mustard seeds and cumin seeds and fry til they begin to pop.

Remove stick of cinnamon and tea infuser of spices from the stockpot. Discard. Add seeds and coconut milk and stir. Use hand held blender to blend as much as you require. I only blended slightly so there were still lots of chunks but you could blend completely or not at all. Check seasoning. Grind some fresh pepper on the soup for garnish.

15 comments:

great vegetarian recipe you've got here.. in response to your comment on my bread post -- yup, in fact in Singapore it's just easier and cheaper to buy a ready-made cake or bread. But definitely not healthier, i don't think so...

Wow! Yes, I love this recipe. I would say you have a good chance of winning the challenge again this month too :) Great combination of flavours and quite different than the Mulligatawny soup I made a while back.

mulagu tani -= chilli water in tamil. it's akin to the tamil rasam, but the poor brits, who didn't know a think about cooking with spices, distorted it to create mulligatawny. i actually like it. :D in tamil nadu, rasam is always vegetarian. it's made with tomatoes, lemon, a whole range of flavourings.

I love your research into the Dubious origins of Mulligatawny! Pepper water *chuckles* It's true, in all my Indian cookbooks there are no soup recipes, unless you call spiced yogurt drinks soup. Tea was also dates back only to the colonial days. Ah, all the mind-twisting "traditions" that are out there...

Thanks pixie, you can win but I am just making sure you have some stiff competition so you feel it is well earned :-) Seriously, though, you could probably be quite creative about using up any vegetables in this meal, so I would recommend it if you have an overload!

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.